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Yet now, as he watched the Maintenance men at work, they seemed to Harlan to be quietly, tensionlessly efficient, reasonably happy.
Why not? They outnumbered the Specialists, the "true Eternals," ten to one. They had a society of their own, residential levels devoted to them, pleasures of their own. Their labor was fixed at so many hours per physioday and there was no social pressure in their case to make them relate their spare-time activity to their profession. They had time, as Specialists did not, to devote to the literature and film dramatizations culled out of the various Realities.
It was they, after all, who probably had the better-rounded personalities. It was the Specialist's life which was harried and affected, artificial in comparison with the sweet and simple life in Maintenance.
Maintenance was the foundation of Eternity. Strange that such an obvious fact had not struck him earlier. They supervised the importation of food and water from Time, the disposal of waste, the functioning of the power plants. They kept all the machinery of Eternity ru
Did Maintenance men resent the loss of their homewhens, or their womanless, childless lives? Was security from poverty, disease, and Reality Change sufficient compensation? Were their views ever consuited on any matter of importance? Harlan felt some of the fire of the social reformer within him.
Senior Computer Twissell broke Harlan's train of thought by bustling in at a half run, looking even more haunted than he had an hour before, when he had left, with Maintenance already at work.
Harlan thought: How does he keep it up? He's an old man.
Twissell glanced about him with birdlike brightness as the men automatically straightened up to respectful attention.
He said, "What about the kettleways?"
One of the men responded, "Nothing wrong, sir. The ways are clear, the fields mesh."
"You've checked everything?"
"Yes, sir. As far upwhen as the Department's stations go."
Twissell said, "Then go."
There was no mistaking the brusque insistence of his dismissal. They bowed respectfully, turned, and hastened out briskly.
Twissell and Harlan were alone in the kettleways.
Twissell turned to him. "You'll stay here. Please."
Harlan shook his head. "I must go."
Twissell said, "Surely you understand. If anything happens to me, you still know how to find Cooper. If anything happens to you, what can I or any Eternal or any combination of Eternals do alone?"
Harlan shook his head again.
Twissell put a cigarette between his lips. He said, "Se
"I don't want delay. I'm ready."
"You insist on going?"
"If there's no barrier, there'll be no danger. Even if there is, I've been there already and come back. What are you afraid of, Computer?"
"I don't want to risk anything I don't have to."
"Then use your logic, Computer. Make the decision that I'm to go with you. If Eternity still exists after that, then it means that the circle can still be closed. It means we'll survive. If it's a wrong decision, then Eternity will pass into nonexistence, but it will anyway if I don't go, because without Noys, I'll make no move to get Cooper. I swear it."
Twissell said, "I'll bring her back to you."
"If it is so simple and safe, there will be no harm if I come along."
Twissell was in an obvious torture of hesitation. He said gruffly, "Well, then, come!"
And Eternity survived.
Twissell's haunted look did not disappear once they were within the kettle. He stared at the skimming figures of the temporometer. Even the scaler gauge, which measured in units of Kilocenturies, and which the men had adjusted for this particular purpose, was clicking at minute intervals.
He said, "You should not have come."
Harlan shrugged. "Why not?"
"It disturbs me. No sensible reason. Call it a long-standing superstition of mine. It makes me restless." He clasped his hands together, holding them tightly.
Harlan said, "I don't understand you."
Twissell seemed eager to talk, as though to exorcise some mental demon. He said, "Maybe you'll appreciate this, at that. You're the expert on the Primitive. How long did man exist in the Primitive?"
Harlan said, "Ten thousand Centuries. Fifteen thousand, maybe."
"Yes. Begi
"It's common knowledge. Yes."
"Then it must be common knowledge that evolution proceeds at a fairly rapid pace. Fifteen thousand Centuries from ape to Homo sapiens."
"Well?"
"Well, I'm from a Century in the 30,000's--"
(Harlan could not help starting. He had never known Twissell's homewhen or known of anyone who did.)
"I'm from a Century in the 30,000's," Twissell said again, "and you're from the 95th. The time between our homewhens is twice the total length of time of man's existence in the Primitive, yet what change is there between us? I was born with four fewer teeth than you, and without an appendix. The physiological differences about end with that. Our metabolism is almost the same. The major difference is that your body can synthesize the steroid nucleus and my body can't, so that I require cholesterol in my diet and you don't. I was able to breed with a woman of the 575th. That's how undifferentiated with time the species is."
Harlan was unimpressed. He had never questioned the basic identity of man throughout the Centuries. It was one of those things you lived with and took for granted. He said, "There have been cases of species living unchanged through millions of Centuries."
"Not many, though. And it remains a fact that the cessation of human evolution seems to coincide with the development of Eternity. Just coincidence? It's not a question which is considered, except by a few here and there like Se
"Of what?" Harlan thought: Well, it's something to listen to, anyway.
"I sometimes thought about Eternity as it was when it was first established. It stretched over just a few Centuries in the 30's and 40's, and its function was mostly trade. It interested itself in the ref orestation of denuded areas, shipping topsoil back and forth, fresh water, fine chemicals. Those were simple days.
"But then we discovered Reality Changes. Senior Computer Henry Wadsman, in the dramatic ma
Harlan said, "The obvious reason. Betterment of humanity."
"Yes. Yes. In normal times, I think so too. But I'm talking of my nightmare. What if there were another reason, an unexpressed one, an unconscious one. A man who can travel into the indefinite future may meet men as far advanced over himself as he himself is over an ape. Why not?"
"Maybe. But men are men--"
"-even in the 70,000th. Yes, I know. And have our Reality Changes had something to do with it? We bred out the unusual. Even Se